1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a device to be connected to a network and, more specifically, to an improvement in a technique for configuring a network device which can be configured through an external device.
2. Description of the Background Art
Along with widespread use of the Internet, TCP/IP (Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol) networks come to be utilized everywhere, including office networks and home networks. Technical innovations improved performances of electronic apparatuses dramatically, while prices thereof are decreased. Therefore, various and many devices come to be connected to such networks. By way of example, connection to a network of not only products seemingly having good affinity such as a personal computer (hereinafter referred to as a “PC”), a television receiver (hereinafter referred to as a “TV”) and a hard disk recorder, but also home appliances of which connection to a network had conventionally never considered, such as a microwave oven and a refrigerator, has been proposed.
Considering connection of various and many devices as such to a network, initialization (initial configuration) of these devices poses a problem.
A device having a user interface of itself, such as a PC, may be configured in the following manner. Specifically, before connecting the device to a network, a setup dialog for network connection is displayed, to receive a user input. The input is checked in a prescribed manner, and if the result of checking is generally correct, a configuration for network connection is changed in accordance with the configuration, and the connection to the network is established with the changed configuration.
In contrast, a device not having a user interface of itself, such as a wireless or wired LAN (Local Area Network) represented by a print server, must receive a configuration input from the user in someway or another. The same is true for most of the home use appliances. If items to be set are small in number, configuration may be done by using dip switches or the like. For network connection, however, many items require settings and, in addition, it is often the case that the configuration information must be stored as character strings. Therefore, it is in most cases difficult to use such means.
A general solution to such a problem is, before connecting a device to a network, to connect the device to an external device such as a PC in one-to-one correspondence, and to set necessary information using the PC. Specifically, an HTTP (HyperText Transfer Protocol) server is activated in the device, and in accordance with information prepared beforehand, a form for configuration information to establish network connection (hereinafter referred to as “configuring form”) is displayed on a browser of the PC. The user inputs necessary information to the form. Receiving the input to the form through the PC, the information is written to a prescribed memory area through an arbitrary process, from the HTTP server in the device. The device is once turned off and reactivated, so that the new configuration is validated, and the device in this state is connected to the network.
Following such a procedure, even a device not having a user interface of itself or a device having only a limited user interface can be re-configured for network connection.
Here, in order to access from a PC to the configuring form, a URI (Uniform Resource Identifier) serving as an identifier of the configuring form on the network, or an IP (Internet Protocol) address as a logical network address of the device, and an MAC (Media Access Control) address as a physical address of the device, are necessary.
Now, an IP address identifies position of a resource on the network and it is generally represented by a row of figures such as 192.168.0.1, which is difficult for people to understand. Therefore, generally, URI representation that is easier to understand is used to identify a host on the network, a path to a target file in the host, a file name and a protocol used. When the URI is designated, an IP address corresponding to the URI is determined, and the target file will be obtained by accessing the host. The browser searches for and displays a resource such as a document on the web in such a manner. Further, an HTTP server receiving a file request from a browser is generally set to return a default file, if no file name is specified by the request.
Therefore, assuming that an IP address indicating a position where the information for configuring the network device is stored has been set in advance in the network device and that the information is set accessibly under a default file name, the configuring form can be displayed when the user inputs the URI or the IP address to the browser.
For a user who cannot clearly understand the necessity of inputting such information, however, even the above described operation is too difficult. At least, such an operation would be troublesome to the user. This is a grave problem, when the device of interest is expected to be used at home, as in the case of a home use appliance.
One approach to solve such a problem is disclosed as a home gateway apparatus, in Japanese Patent Laying-Open No. 2004-220240. In the home gateway apparatus disclosed in Japanese Patent Laying-Open No. 2004-220240, when an HTTP request is sent from a PC connected to a network device and a log-in name or a password of an administrator of the gateway apparatus itself is not specified, that is, when conditions representing that the home gateway apparatus is in a state immediately after shipment are satisfied, a URI included in the HTTP request is forcibly changed to the URI of the configuring form of the network device itself. As a result, if a PC browser is set to access a prescribed URI at the time of activation, for example, the configuring form of the home gateway apparatus would be displayed on the PC browser.
The system described in Japanese Patent Laying-Open No. 2004-220240, however, is on the premise that, when the network device is connected to the PC for the first time, the IP addresses of the PC and the default gateway can be assigned through a DHCP (Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol) service in the network device. It is, however, not always the case. Network operation generally differs network by network, and expecting common conditions is unrealistic. Though it is possible to confirm network configuration of a PC in advance, such a task is troublesome for a user and, particularly for a novice user of a PC, it is quite difficult.
For instance, immediately after purchasing a PC, it is unknown whether the PC is configured to get an IP address assigned by the DHCP service or not. Further, a PC connected to the network device may be a PC that has been used on an existing network and, in that case, the IP address of the PC or the default gateway might have been already set. Therefore, it is not at all certain if setting of an IP address is possible through DHCP. Thus, the system disclosed in Japanese Patent Laying-Open No. 2004-220240 correctly operates only in very limited situations.
For a network device, it is necessary to provide a method that reliably displays the configuring form even to a user not very familiar with a network at the time of configuring initial information, without any knowledge of a PC to be connected. Such a method, however, is not yet available.